New World to keep pace on sales despite stamp duty
New stamp duty has little effect on developer's sales timetable as few buyers are from mainland
New World Development does not plan to change its timetable for property sales despite the impact of the new buyer's stamp duty on demand from those who are not permanent residents.
"We need time to monitor the impact of the duty on the property market," executive director and joint general manager Adrian Cheng Chi-kong said after the company's annual general meeting yesterday.
Cheng said not all property buyers were speculators, and the new duty would also affect people buying a home to live in.
"The best way to balance the property market is to increase land supply," he said.
Cheng warned that capital would flow into other investments, such as stocks, if the government extended the cooling measures to non-residential property.
Although mainland buyers would be affected by the stamp duty, only about 10 to 15 per cent of the homebuyers at new projects were from the mainland.
"We didn't see mainland buyers decrease sharply, as only a small portion of our buyers are mainlanders. Most of our buyers are local end-users," Cheng said.